[OpenAFS] Volume backup in distinct server

[Joao Pedro Barreto]

Hi,

But, after creating the clone in the same server/partition as the 
original volume, how can I copy its contents accross the net to the 
other server/partition?
Is there any way I could do this using exclusively AFS commands? Or do I 
have to copy everything by my own hands, for example using a simple Unix 
cp command? And how can I configure it to be periodic, for instance, to 
be performed daily?

The best thing I can think of is to issue a 'vos dump' command to the 
readonly clones, and piping its output to a 'vos restore' on the other 
server/partition. Putting this line for each volume I want to backup in 
a shell script and configure it in chron, I might have my problem solved.
Do you find any problems with this solution? Or is there any better 
approach?

Thank you.
Joao


Derek Atkins wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> The backup volume is meant for user access to backup data, not for
> "replication across servers".  It's on the same server to reduce
> the amount of disk space that is used.  It's purpose is not to protect
> against lost disks, it's purpose is to protect against "rm".
> 
> What you seem to want is ReadWrite replication, which is something
> that AFS does not do.
> 
> One thing you CAN do is make a RO clone on the same server/partition
> as the RW (as well as on the other server).  The local RO clone wont
> take up much disk space (it's a clone after all, just like the Backup
> volume), but it does help in terms of the locking.  The RW only gets
> locked in order to make the clone, and then the clone is copied across
> the net.  This means your RW volume isn't locked for the whole release
> process, only during the clone.
> 
> -derek
> 
> Joao Pedro Barreto <jpbarreto@gsd.inesc-id.id> writes:
> 
> 
>>Hi,
>>
>>I administer an AFS domain which has two servers storing file volumes.
>>I wanted to configure volume backup, so that each volume stored in one
>>server's disk would be replicated (or backed up) in the other server's
>>disk.
>>My first approach was to create read-only replicas of each volume. For
>>instance, if a volume was stored in server A, I would create a
>>read-only volume for it on server B. However, I soon discovered that
>>the release of volumes (which I'd perform daily in order to update the
>>read-only volumes) NEEDS TO LOCK the original volume, which can be a
>>serious drawback if we consider that most volumes are sufficiently big
>>to take some hours to be released.
>>I then found about the backup functionality which, according to AFS
>>documentation, should be the best choice for my problem. Mainly, this
>>solution doesn't require locking of the original volumes to update the
>>backup volumes. However, this option only allows creation of backup
>>volumes in the SAME PARTITION (AND SERVER) as the original
>>volume. Which, of course, is insuficient to my requirements of having
>>backup volumes in distinct computers from their original volumes (so
>>that, if a computer fails and its data are lost, the volume can still
>>be obtainable from the other computer).
>>
>>Does anyone can help me on this? how should I solve my problem?
>>
>>Thank you in advance.
>>
>>Joao
>>jpbarreto _AT_ gsd _DOT_ inesc-id _DOT_ id
>>
>>
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> 
>